


Split Needles

by bellatemple



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Episode Tag, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-14
Updated: 2010-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-26 22:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellatemple/pseuds/bellatemple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Swan Song, Sam comes by to check up on Dean.  He doesn't find him where he expects to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Split Needles

It figured. Sam spent weeks hovering just on the edge of his brother's new world, watching for smiles and laughter and warm light and soaking them up when he caught them, and the one time he went away, just took a moment to power down and give himself a break from the wonderful, fantastic pain of watching his brother live the life that he himself had always wanted, Dean went and fucking moved out.

Seriously. It was like Dean actually knew Sam was gone and wouldn't be peering over his shoulder, any more.

It took all of a second for him to find Dean's new place, a shabby apartment above a tiny, ethnic market well away from Lisa's little suburban bungalo. The place would practically reek of Dean, even if the Impala weren't parked outside. The inside smelled of old cabbage and stale smoke. Dean sat on a chair held together with twine and duct tape, elbows on the stained formica tabletop. He twirled what looked like a colored coin and drank, of all things, a diet coke.

Sam didn't give a single thought to subterfuge. He stood across from Dean -- there was only one chair -- and stared. Dean snorted, didn't look up.

"Are you you?" he asked, as though the answer could ever be that simple.

"Yes," Sam said, because just maybe it was.

Dean's eyes angled upwards, the mouth of the diet coke bottle hovering a few inches from his lips. "You sure about that?"

Sam tilted his head, shrugged. "I'm not him."

Dean nodded. "Been waiting. Lives like ours, didn't take me long to figure you'd find some way out." He set the bottle down, pinched his coin hard between his thumb and the first knuckle of his index finger. "You always were the smart one."

"Dean," said Sam, because sometimes he thought his brother needed that reaffirmation. "What are you doing here?"

"Only place I've got to be."

Sam shook his head, planted his palms on the table. The surface looked evenly glossy, but he could feel it stick to his hands. "You were with Lisa."

Dean laughed then, once, a hard sound that did no favors to his throat. He weighed the coin in his hand, then flipped it to Sam. Sam caught it and held it up to the meager, yellow light of the incandescent on the kitchen counter. It was plastic, with a fine, shiny coating to imitate metal. The edge was marked with the motto "to thine own self be true", with the words "unity", "service", and "recovery" edging a large triangle. The middle said "1 month".

Sam imagined many things about Dean's new life, first in Lucifer's cage, then standing outside Lisa's house to catch glimpses through the windows. This chip didn't fit any of them. "You joined AA?"

Dean sipped his soda. "Her idea. Didn't help much."

Sam flipped the chip back at him. Dean let it fall to the table, rolling close to the edge before he smacked his hand down on it to halt its progress. Sam wanted to grab his hand, pull it off the thing. "Is that why you moved out?"

"Also her idea." Dean shrugged. There was grease in the creases of his fingers, a faint smear where his jaw met his neck. "Till I 'get myself figured out'."

Sam wished there were another chair. "But you love her."

Dean looked up from the table top again. He took his hand off the chip, dug into his pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

Sam'd never seen Dean smoke, before.

Dean took his time lighting it, tapped the pack against the ball of his hand five times, pulled one out, then tapped the butt on the table three times. Put it to his lips, pulled out his zippo. Lit it, checked the tip to make sure it all caught, letting smoke leak from between his lips, then took a drag before he'd even quite finished exhaling.

He gagged, just once, exhaled in a rush, and pushed air between his teeth with his tongue a few times. He rubbed the thumb of the hand holding the cigarette against the ridge of his brow. "I'd met her, like, four times, Sam."

Sam noticed he doesn't say 'no'. "But you love her," he said again.

"Turns out it takes more than a GED and a give-em-hell attitude to land a 'real' job in this town. And sitting around on the couch drinking beer's a bad influence on the kid."

Sam leaned his weight on the table. It tilted towards him on uneven legs -- or maybe an uneven floor, it was hard to tell. "But," he said. "You love her."

The look Dean gave him then, framed by his hand on one side and the drifting smoke of his cigarette on the other, sent Sam back a step. On the surface, it was tired and dull, worn the way a man kicked out of his home and into a recovery program must be. Underneath it was desolate. Cold. Terrified. "She doesn't love me."

Sam swallowed, shook his head. "I saw you. The three of you, in the kitchen. You were happy. There was _pie_."

The corner of Dean's mouth twitched, and he covered it quickly with his hand, taking a drag on the cigarette. He'd never smoked, growing up, even though he always hung around the kids who did. Played hell on his lung capacity, he said. Had to stay in top form for the hunt. Had enough problems with broken fingers and broken ribs and stitches without throwing tar and phlegm and ash into the mix. The fingers on the hands holding the cigarette and soda bottle hadn't been broken. The body only held a fraction of the scars it once had. His ribs were etched, but not by cracks or bruises. This Dean was stained by nicotine, and little else.

"She likes me well enough," he said. "We have the _greatest_ sex. She doesn't love me."

Sam scowled, looks around. "You need another chair."

"I'm kinda hoping not to be here that long."

Sam looked up, hope and pain welling in his chest. "You're moving back?"

Dean shrugged. "If I hold down a job." He tapped some ash onto his chip. "Stop drinking. Maybe get some therapy. She'll think about it." He smirked, and Sam suddenly understood.

He'd had his chance at normal, or whatever slight glimpse of normal Azazel was willing to give him. He'd had Jess, and Stanford, school and the promise of a good career. It was a lie, but he hadn't known that then, and he'd loved it. And that time had passed.

He wanted that for Dean. Lisa instead of Jess, Ben instead of school. A family, just like Dean always dreamed of. Barbecues. Sports. A home and a good job and people who loved him -- _that weren't Sam_. Being loved by Dean was like sitting under a magnifying glass angled in the sun. Bright, focused, and burning, and Sam wanted Dean to point it elsewhere. He wanted Dean to have what he had, what he couldn't get back, and he wanted to watch it and know his brother was okay without that burning focus bearing down on him. So he sent Dean to Lisa.

He forgot what Lisa might want.

He and Dean, they weren't built for normal. They never had been. They'd been built to stand on asphalt under the pounding focus of something brighter and hotter than the sun and bear the marks and melting proudly.

Plus, there was that thing where they were legally dead. And most places wanted a lot more than some Kinko's-ed ID badges and a bad suit as proof of identity.

Sam leaned further over the table, sending it rocking. The AA chip slid off the edge, bouncing across the floor, and rolled under the tiny refrigerator. Dean leaned back, brows drawing together and down, but Sam was faster, catching his hand and snatching the cigarette from it. He pitched it into the sink, accuracy unerring. Dean squawked, mouth open to protest further, but Sam cut him off.

"There's chupacabra in New Mexico," he said.

Dean frowned further. "Sam --"

"There's a haunted hotel in San Diego."

"Sam, come on --"

"There's hedge-witches in Massachussetts and a swamp thing in the Everglades and Wendigos in North Dakota."

Dean stopped protesting. He put his elbows back on the table, sending it rocking back in Sam's direction. Sam twisted his head, knowing he was nearly there.

"Do we know that Crowley gave Bobby back his soul as promised?"

Dean barked a laugh, this one far less hoarse than the last, and rubbed a hand over his forehead. "Dude, we are not going after any demons."

"It's Bobby."

Dean sighed. "Yeah." He pushed off the table, gave his diet coke a considering look. "Hunting's a job," he said, with maybe a fraction of hesitation.

"It is."

"And I can not drink on the road."

"Might be easier than doing it sitting around this place. I think the naugahyde on that couch might've been cured in beer."

"She'd understand, right?"

Sam nodded, then shrugged. "If she doesn't, then she really doesn't know you very well."

It was as though Dean's whole being had brightened, though he still held back. "You hate hunting."

"No. I don't. I haven't in a long time."

"I hate hunting."

"You hated not having a family. You hated being pulled around by angels and demons to end the world. Admit it: you loved wasting a nasty spirit."

Dean closed his eyes, then nodded slowly. "Okay. But we're not doing what we did before."

"Which part, the world ending?"

"Yeah, that, too." Dean pushed himself out of the old chair. The floor creaked. "We're keeping a home base. I don't want to run out on Ben."

Sam nodded. "Bobby's always had a home base. So did Pastor Jim and Ellen."

Dean's lips tightened at the mentions of people who'd been lost, but he nodded. "Okay. I mean, I gotta talk to Lisa, first."

"Dude. You'd met her, like, four times."

Dean smacked Sam across the head. Sam's lips split into a full sized grin. "Bitch."

Yeah. That was the kind of love -- the kind of _family_ \-- Sam could handle. Let Dean split his focus, lay claim to more than one person, and Sam could bask instead of burn.

Sam was free. Of Hell, of Lucifer, of destiny, and of Dean. It left him reeling, made him feel like he was hurtling forward without a seatbelt. Getting that last bit back, getting Dean to hold without binding, that was worth it.

Mostly.


End file.
